Younovo InJoy Education. What You Should Know Before Applying.

This is all based on my own personal experiences so far.  Experiences may vary from person to person. (http://www.injoyedu.com/)

What follows is what I think recruiters should (but likely won't) tell foreign teachers during the video interview before hiring them.  So what will they tell you?  They'll tell you whatever they think it is that you want to hear to get you to sign-up with this company as quickly as possible - particularly if you're a native speaker, because from what I've heard recruiters get a nice big fat bonus in their paycheck for hiring native English speakers (although I have no way of knowing whether or not that's true - it's just what I've heard).

When you first arrive you’ll be picked up at the airport by your recruiter and be taken to a  two-star hotel (https://youtu.be/db-7NZsTEFk - Maybe not this exact hotel, but one similar.) nearby the office. You’ll spend about two weeks in the hotel, but because space is limited and new foreigners are always coming, after that two weeks you’ll be moved into an apartment with at least one other foreigner.  It’s possible but very unlikely that you’ll get an apartment to yourself.

As for work, you’ll spend about the first two weeks sitting in a small training room watching videos.  

There are three types of videos:

1.      Other teachers’ demo lessons.

2.      Other teachers teaching actual classes.

3.      Children’s songs. 

Time spent in the training room is unpaid and the first two weeks are obligatory.  If after two weeks they still haven’t found you a full-time job, you will only have to come to the office as required (for example, if you need access to their printing facilities or something like that).  In this time they will do their best to find you some substitution or part-time work.  Keep trying.  You will get a full-time job eventually (most likely at a kindergarten or a training centre).  Note that in some cases it may take a few months before receiving full-time employment.

After a few days you’ll be asked to make a short demo lesson to present in front of some of the InJoy staff (and other foreigners that may also be present), after which you will receive some feedback.  Please adjust your demo according to the feedback and try again later.

Once the staff are satisfied with your demo you will be taken to a school (most likely a kindergarten or a training centre) where you will deliver the demo again.  Depending on the school, you may deliver the demo only in front of school staff, or perhaps in front of a small class of students.  There will be a short interview with the staff either before or after giving the demo.  If you get the job you will be informed within a few days.  Unsuccessful applicants will not be informed and will have to continue at the office as usual.  Keep trying.  You will get a job eventually (most likely at a kindergarten or a training centre).  If you are offered a job that does not align with your preferences you have the right to decline, however it's strongly recommended that you take the job anyway, otherwise it might be several weeks – possibly months – before finding you another job, which would be detrimental to your finances.  The sooner you accept a full-time position, the sooner you can start being paid a full-time salary.

While it’s true that they have everything from kindergarten to university available, please keep in mind that you’ll most likely be matched to either a kindergarten or a training centre because they are privately owned, looking for new teachers year-round, and generally don't have holidays, which means in many cases you'll get paid year-round, unlike public schools which have both winter and summer holidays (Younovo InJoy Education pay by the hour, calculated to the exact minute and not a penny more, which means if you don't work, you won't get paid).  To increase your chances of being matched to public schools such as high-schools or universities you should arrive either just before February or just before September, because once session has started it will be much harder to match you to a public school.  But again, you'll most likely be matched to a kindergarten or a training centre.

Kindergarten's here in China generally teach from ages 3 to 9, with training schools teaching up to ages 16, and may also have private classes for adults.  Class sizes vary from anywhere between 4 and 20 students (and in some cases maybe even 30), whereas public schools can potentially have class sizes up to 80.  No that's not a typo, and yes you read that correctly - eighty.

Why I Love NETFLIX (incl. Amazon affiliate link)

What Business Insider tells us about Netflixis that:  

"In 2010, Netflix had 530 TV shows and 6,755 movies, according to Flixable. Today, the number of TV shows has nearly tripled, to 1,569, and the number of moviesoffered has decreased to 4,010. It's no secret that Netflix has focused more on TVshows and less on movies in recent years."

Some of the best TV shows and movies I've seen on here in recent years such The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (prequel to the cult classic The Dark Crystal (Blu-ray) (also available on Netflix), and I AM MOTHER are an excellent way to be entertained, regardless of your age or lifestyle.

Amazon affiliate links:
  

Leia was not "flying through space like Superman". Star Wars Episode VIII The Last Jedi

Firstly, it's not hard to imagine that in the amount time that's passed between Episode VI and Episode VIII that Luke has trained his sister in the ways of the Jedi, so when we say "Leia was flying through space like Superman" we're just being ignorant. Ignorant of two things:
1) How space works. 2) How The Force works. Now I'm no expert on either of these but I can tell you right now that Leia was not "flying through space like Superman". She was in space and was therefore 'weightless' and simply used The Force to pull herself back to the ship. It's no different to force-pulling a lightsaber out of the snow, but the ligthsaber is a lot lighter, so it goes towards the Jedi rather than vice-verca. Now you may have started wondering something like "Well then why didn't Yoda get pulled towards the X-Wing when he pulled it out of the swamp in Episode V?" (or possibly not because you may not have the level of spatial-awareness* required to make that kind of a leap. I don't know you, so I have no idea, I'm just hypothesising) A) Because he wasn't in the weightlessness of space like Leia was. B) Because it wasn't his will to go towards the X-Wing, but to have the X-Wing levitated out of the swamp. "The Force" is not as hard to understand as people are making it out to be. It's not just "Telekinesis and mind tricks", it's will power on a very massive scale with immediate results. That's all. Nothing more mystical than that. ===== *The ability to understand what two or more objects, concepts, scenarios or themes are and how the relate to each other. A person can, as is my understanding, improve their level of spatial-awareness (aka spatial-reasoning) by practicing solving logic puzzles (whether in real-life or in video-games), or by learning a musical instrument, with the piano being the one that will increase it in the least amount of time in comparison to the amount of time it will be increased learning other instruments.

Epic Long River Walk

Teaching in China, 2016. Day One - My Arrival.

I landed, waited for my luggage, - although because of what happened last time, I waited somewhat apprehensively - and went on my way, hoping to see someone by the name of Yolanda waiting for me with a sign.

I walked out, and I see two Chinese ladies and they ask me "Lan Hollis?", and I'm like "Huh?"
"Lan!" and I'm like "You're Yolanda?" and she showed me the sign she'd written "Lan Hollis", and I'm like, uh no, "Ian Hollis" (The error here comes from the font used in the Chinese messaging service WeChat being sans-serif, which makes the upper case 'I' and the lower case 'l' look identical.  But why they think I'd write my first name entirely in lowercase, and only my second name beginning with a capital is entirely beyond me.

She was there with her friend Tina, another staff member from the school where I'd be working, because Tina can drive and Yolanda can't.

We drove from Ningbo airport to Fenghua - about an hour, maybe 90 minute drive - and I was hoping to be able to go straight to my apartment, unload my stuff, (like, just put my bag in the room), and then get on with things; However, this was not to be the case.  Yolanda and Tina were rather insistent that I set up a bank account, even though I already had one.  Anyway, it turns out I needed to set up a new one, anyway, because my old one was from Hunan, and I am currently in Zhejiang, and if I'd continued with the one from Hunan, it would have cost me a small fee any time I wanted to anything, so I began setting up a new bank account, only to be told that I couldn't without a telephone number, so off to China Mobile me went and got me a sim-card with a local Chinese phone number.  I chose a number from the list, which was apparently taken, then chose another which is now mine.  We went back to the bank - a slightly different, closer to the school where I work, bank - and continued setting up my bank account, where I deposited a small amount of money I'd had with me since my time in Australia where I exchanged some Australian money for some Chinese in the Sydney International (Charles Kingsford Smith) Airport.

After it had all been said and done, we went to lunch on the fourth floor - the 'theme restaurants' level - of the shopping centre which is part of the same building complex as my apartment.  Tina had ordered me a peppered beef steak - I think that's what it was, anyway.  Anyway, we ate our meals, talked with each other about ordinary things - what it was like for me before, what was going to happen this time around, and so on ... after which I was taken back to my apartment on the eighth floor, where I could, after having been awake for more than twelve hours straight, finally catch some rest.

Teaching in China 2016 - Monkey on a Plane.

The person whom I sat next to on the flight from Sydney to Guangzhou was clearly not an experienced flier - constantly fidgeting, sometimes complaining to the crew and, well, given her age, it can be forgiven that she didn't seem to know how to use the touch screen panel in front of her; However, that fact that she didn't know how to use it amplified how fidgety she was.  This is all in economy class, by the way, so her her constant fidgeting meant me constantly being elbowed in my right hand side.  When the time came that she wanted to recline, she tried to lift the arm rest between the two chairs, and slamming her back into the chair.  It was at the point my image of her was of a "Monkey on a Plane" (even though it's not a particularly nice thing to say about someone).  This all went on for NINE HOURS AND FORTY MINUTES!!!  Do you know how long that is!?  It's just over seventy-five percent (75%) of HALF A DAY!!!  When the plane eventually landed, the nightmare was finally over just got worse, as just after the plane had landed - and I mean literally just after the plane had landed ... the very second after the plane was 100% on the ground - she started gesturing up towards the luggage compartment, obviously asking me to get her baggage down.  There were announcements in both Chinese and English requesting passengers stay in their seats until the plane had come to a complete stop, and the seat-belt light had gone off.  Yet, she constantly kept pointing to the overhead baggage hold and asking me to get her luggage.  For fuck sake, woman, learn to have some fucking patience and stop acting like you think getting your luggage down first is somehow more important than that of every other passenger on the plane. !@#$%^&*()!!!!!

In case you're wondering, after the plane eventually did come to a complete stop, and the seat-belt light did go out, yes, I did actually get her luggage down for her ... she was only a little monkey, after all.  ;-p

Teaching in China - How I Met My Roommate (in Feb 2015).

I walked into my assigned hotel room, and noticed I was the first there.  Was it that I was lucky to get a room to myself?  Probably not.  We'd been told there were still a few on their way.

Two beds to choose from, so I take the one near the window, taking note of what my sister often says about people being less likely to take your seat if you leave your personal belongs there.  So I put my hat down, put some loose change and my sunglasses in it, and my bag on a chair by the table ... or on the bedside table ... I forget exactly which it was.  Anyway.  I made sure that I 'claimed' that bed as I my own, and whomever my room mate turned out to be knew it as soon as they walked it. (turns out when he first walked in (I was out with some other interns at the time) he wasn't sure if it was mine, or the cleaners just neglected to pick up the previous person's things (something like that, anyway).

Anyway, I've come back from a small night out, getting to know some of the other inters (most of them British, one South-African) and I see some luggage parked in the bedroom (keep in mind, my luggage is still in transit at this point - please read my previous entry for more information about that) and I wonder if the luggage is mine (the lights are off and I was gonna go straight to bed, anyway). The large luggage looks like mine, but seems to be the wrong colour.  I see the other bed is occupied and figure he probably just wants to sleep.  I go to bed and figure I'll worry about my luggage in the morning.

The next morning I get up and my roommate's alarm goes off, so I get up as well and we get talking and get along well.  We get ready and go to have breakfast with the other interns.

Turns out he's a legit teacher from the U.S. and even has some well-respected Japanese citizens as his students and even tells me the story of how he ended up being their teacher.

What can I say but to quote the immortal words of Darth Vader? "Impressive ... Most impressive." ... and plus I just wanted to shoehorn in a Star Wars reference.

Anyway ~